Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[Spider]

[Sam Flynn]

I disagree with Sam Flynn, incidentally, that it is from the 1980s that the usage of the "one off" expression "really takes off in print". I think he is being misled by his methodology

I was merely reporting the objective result of my methodology, which showed that there was indeed a proliferation of those phrases in print from the 1980s onwards... at least in terms of those publications digitised by Google at the time I conducted my survey. Bearing that constraint in mind - and I've never pretended that the method was anything other than indicative - I can't see why the findings shouldn't in some way reflect what was happening in the real world. Google have, after all, digitised an enormous amount of publications, and a larger sample would be very hard to find.

[caz]

It still works, Caz: "Three years ago, I found an old photograph in an album. It was of a donkey standing by a grave". In fact, it works with even shorter time-scales: "I found an old photograph in an album this morning. It was of a donkey standing by a grave".

In neither case does it mean, or suggest, that I no longer possess the photograph.

Yes, Gareth. But my point was - and is - that if if if Mike still had that photo in January 1995, why did he never produce it so it could be examined for evidence that it had once been in the guardbook?

And if it had by then gone the way of all his other 'evidence' [apart from the little red herring - sorry, diary, which he willingly handed over to Anne, who willingly passed it on to Keith], how does it help with anything now?

Love,

Caz
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[Sam Flynn]

Yes, Gareth. But my point was - and is - that if if if Mike still had that photo in January 1995, why did he never produce it so it could be examined for evidence that it had once been in the guardbook?

Perhaps he no longer owned it after all, Caz, but why would he pretend that this very distinctive photograph was found in the book in the first place? If you're going to make stuff up, a photo of a donkey standing next to a grave is hardly the first thing that's going to spring to mind.

[caz]

Hi Caz

let me ask you something. why would barrett go through the trouble of taking out an affidavit admitting he hoaxed it if he didn't?

Hi Abby,

Sorry for the belated response!

And sorry for putting it into another question:

Why would Mike have admitted it if he was knowingly involved in a hoax?

Nobody asked him to confess to anything, the previous June, yet he suddenly came out with his claim to have created the diary all by himself. What do you think he had to gain from doing that? The royalties had recently begun to come in very nicely thank you, then wham! He does that and pisses on his own cornflakes. Why, if the point of it all had been to make lots of lovely money out of his discovery of Jack the Ripper's identity?

And since he was very angry and bitter towards Anne at the time for leaving him and taking their daughter with her, why did he wait until the following January [a year after she had gone] to say she had helped him hoax it, if this was true? Had he produced any hard and fast evidence of a joint enterprise none of us would be here now.

Why would he have needed to swear an affidavit if he had proof of what he was claiming? Aren't these kind of things done when there is no proof, and the swearer has to hope his word will be good enough?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Perhaps he no longer owned it after all, Caz, but why would he pretend that this very distinctive photograph was found in the book in the first place? If you're going to make stuff up, a photo of a donkey standing next to a grave is hardly the first thing that's going to spring to mind.

Oh Gareth, ye of little imagination. Could Mike not have been cobbling truth onto fantasy, with a real photo in mind but not one he had necessarily found in the guardbook? Didn't rj mention a possible Liverpool origin for it?

And if you're going to make stuff up, pretending to have been a member of MI5 and to have foiled an IRA plot are hardly the first things that would spring to the mind of anyone but the seriously deluded, surely?

Love,

Caz
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[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

Sorry for the belated response!

And sorry for putting it into another question:

Why would Mike have admitted it if he was knowingly involved in a hoax?

Nobody asked him to confess to anything, the previous June, yet he suddenly came out with his claim to have created the diary all by himself. What do you think he had to gain from doing that? The royalties had recently begun to come in very nicely thank you, then wham! He does that and pisses on his own cornflakes. Why, if the point of it all had been to make lots of lovely money out of his discovery of Jack the Ripper's identity?

And since he was very angry and bitter towards Anne at the time for leaving him and taking their daughter with her, why did he wait until the following January [a year after she had gone] to say she had helped him hoax it, if this was true? Had he produced any hard and fast evidence of a joint enterprise none of us would be here now.

Why would he have needed to swear an affidavit if he had proof of what he was claiming? Aren't these kind of things done when there is no proof, and the swearer has to hope his word will be good enough?

Love,

Caz
X

HI Caz
well that was slippery!
answer mine first! LOL

Hi Caz

let me ask you something. why would barrett go through the trouble of taking out an affidavit admitting he hoaxed it if he didn't?

[Sam Flynn]

Oh Gareth, ye of little imagination. Could Mike not have been cobbling truth onto fantasy, with a real photo in mind but not one he had necessarily found in the guardbook?

I had already imagined the possibility, Caz, but why would he cobble a real photo into the fantasy at all? The simplest scenario is that the donkey/grave photograph was indeed found in the scrapbook, as Mike said. This is hardly an outlandish claim in itself and, in terms of "Planet Mike", a decidedly innocuous one.

Didn't RJ mention a possible Liverpool origin for it?

Yes, which might give us a clue as to the origin of the album itself. I can think of few more likely places for a photograph of a Liverpudlian pets' cemetery to turn up than a Liverpudlian scrapbook.

[Joshua Rogan]

And if you're going to make stuff up, pretending to have been a member of MI5 and to have foiled an IRA plot are hardly the first things that would spring to the mind of anyone but the seriously deluded, surely?

Just out of interest, has anyone been able to confirm that he definitely wasn't a member of MI5?

[caz]

It does make sense if Mike had drafted out the whole text of the diary (say on his word processor) but didn't have very much money and didn't want to go to the expense of actually buying the ink and the pen(s) and the journal etc. if no-one was going to be interested in what he produced.

I'm sorry, David, but money isn't everything. Would anyone seriously have gone to the trouble of finding a real historical figure to be their Jack the Ripper, research the most obvious potential pitfalls and then draft out 'the whole text of the diary' if they were unsure they could actually interest anyone in such an item when all the hard work was done? More to the point, why would they be unsure? The identity of the ripper discovered at last, from his own personal record of the murders? A similar argument is made, and with much justification IMHO, against Anne or her father having had that diary in their family for years and taking no apparent interest in it at all.

So I'm suggesting that he first got an indication from Doreen that she would be interested. Then he could go ahead and spend some cash. All he needed to do was just transcribe the diary from the pre-written draft. Sure he needed to find a real Victorian diary first, which is exactly why he contacted Martin Earl. Perhaps he was an optimist who didn't think it would be difficult. But he did eventually get one and, like I say, it explains perfectly why he didn't rush down to London shortly after 9th March with the diary.

So would Mike have had no qualms about the handwriting looking nothing like Maybrick's? Or didn't he try to check? No qualms about any expert being able to tell the ink was as fresh as a daisy and newly applied? Did he already know the ink would never change in colour or appearance from the day it was first examined? Or did he just assume that would prove to be the case?

And how many last-minute amendments would you suggest were made to the draft to suit the physical book, which wasn't apparently acquired until the very end of March, and wasn't even a diary? Or was the draft by chance already more suited to the guardbook than it would have been to any actual made-for-purpose 'diary' for any specific year from 1880 to 1890, which he might have expected to receive as a result of his enquiry? Should he not have asked for two diaries, for 1888 and 1889? Or specified 'undated', but of the right period? Or was he doing all this in a rush?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Just out of interest, has anyone been able to confirm that he definitely wasn't a member of MI5?

Ha, do you expect MI5 to talk, Joshua?

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

I had already imagined the possibility, Caz, but why would he cobble a real photo into the fantasy at all?

To get people to swallow the story, Gareth?

The simplest scenario is that the donkey/grave photograph was indeed found in the scrapbook, as Mike said.

I take it you don't mean the hoaxer left it in there when putting it under the floorboards.

If you mean the 'simplest' scenario is that Mike found the photo when he brought the guardbook home from O&L at the end of March 1992, for Anne to pen the diary text into, I would have to disagree. I find that just about the most difficult one to reconcile with the ongoing investigation over the last 25 years into the true origins of the diary.

Perhaps Mike really was a member of MI5 and learned all the tricks about how to fool all the people all the time, with at least one of the many and varied accounts he juggled over the years. I'm still not buying a single one of his tales from Liverpool.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

HI Caz
well that was slippery!
answer mine first! LOL

I thought I did, Abby.

Because you don't need to swear an affidavit admitting to something you have done if you can simply provide the proof.

If you can't provide the proof because you didn't do it, swearing an affidavit may be the only way to impress people and convince then that you really did it - because, as you have demonstrated, an affidavit does sound impressive to people, even knowing the one Mike swore two years earlier in 1993 must have been a total fabrication if the 1995 one was not.

In my view neither can be relied on, given Mike's track record.

Love,

Caz
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[Sam Flynn]

To get people to swallow the story, Gareth?

Why not say it contained a photograph of Churchill, the Titanic or the Queen Mother - either of which wouldn't have been particularly unbelievable, and all of which would have supported the idea that the scrapbook was still in use in the early 20th century? Why pick THAT particular photo, unless it really was in the book?

[caz]

The chances of Brian being able to remember, 25 years later, what someone said to him one day in July 1992 - something he wasn't asked to recall until over a year later - are minimal to non-existent.

Hi David,

Just a quick one for you. How do you know Brian Rawes was asked by Scotland Yard to recall what Eddie said to him in July 1992? How would Scotland Yard have even known that any such conversation had taken place until Brian himself introduced it while being asked what he knew, if anything?

Why would Brian have volunteered the information about his conversation with Eddie, recalling precisely when it took place and under what circumstances [which has been supported independently by others as well as the relevant work sheet], if he could barely remember the gist of what was said and might have got the wrong end of the stick or become seriously confused in the period from July 1992 to October 1993, but it had the potential to get Eddie into undeserved trouble if he hadn't mentioned finding anything under the floorboards, or at least nothing about it being a book or diary? Brian himself wasn't in any kind of trouble if he never actually worked in the house, so why did he need to say anything at all unless he remembered the conversation and thought it could be important when talking to Scotland Yard?

Eddie was trying to account for why Brian thinks he told him about a discovery that day. He was speculating rather then remembering. It really doesn't matter whether it was good speculation or not. I wasn't commenting on that. I was saying that the idea that his mention of a diary emerged from him talking to Brian about books doesn't match up with Brian's recollection that only one thing was said as he was about to drive away. Eddie could be right if for some reason he came up to the car and started talking about books (which Brian now remembers as him mentioning a discovery). Although why he would have done that is unclear.

If Eddie is now denying finding anything, not even an old newspaper, he's unlikely to say that he told Brian in July 1992 that he did find something. If he had said nothing at all to Brian he could have said so. But 'speculating' that he might have gone up to Brian as he was about to drive off, to impart the information that the house contained a lot of old books, and that if Brian wasn't being a lying bastard, this must have turned in his confused mind into an important discovery [and by the time he repeated what he thought he had heard to Arthur Rigby later that day - not over a year later] sounds a bit like Eddie trying to shut the stable door long after the horse has bolted.

All for this week.

Have a great weekend all.

Love,

Caz
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